Introduction to Heart Disease Risk Factors

Summary

Updated to follow the new National Cholesterol Education Program guidelines, this video helps patients see the importance of knowing their individual risk factors. It explains that the more risks they have the greater their chances of heart attack or stroke. It helps motivate patients to make minimizing risks a goal. The video then details what they can do to reduce each risk and shows that by controlling certain risk factors they can reduce their risk of others. A variety of people with heart disease share their own experiences throughout the video.

Details

Heart attacks are the result of changes that have been happening in your body for years.

Hard plaques:

• fatty substances build up narrowing vessels and reducing blood flow
• may be the cause of chest pain and shortness of breath
• if blood flow is completely blocked, a heart attack occurs

Soft plaques:

• also called vulnerable plaques
• can break open causing a blood clot to form

Risk factors:

• characteristics that make it more likely to develop heart disease
• more risk factors = greater risk of a heart attack or stroke

Uncontrollable risk factors:

• age:
  • man over 45
  • woman over 55 or has had ovaries removed
• family history:
  • male relative had heart attack before 45
  • female relative had heart attack before 65

Controllable risk factors:

• abnormal cholesterol levels
• smoking
• high blood pressure
• inactivity or lack of exercise
• being overweight
• diabetes
• stress

A blood test can measure your cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol and triglycerides in your blood.

Steps to lower cholesterol:

• change what you eat
  • limit the amount of fat you eat
  • eliminate saturated fat and transfat
• be more physically active
• lose weight if needed

Saturated fat is found in meats and dairy products made from whole milk.

Transfats are vegetable oils that have been hardened from their liquid state into solids or semi-solids.

Eat twenty to thirty grams of fiber per day.

Smoking causes the heart arteries to temporarily narrow or spasm. Smoking also speeds up the clogging process in the heart's arteries.

It's difficult to stop smoking, but don't be discouraged.

There is no cure for high blood pressure, so you remain at greater risk of a stroke, as well as heart disease, for the rest of your life unless you lower your blood pressure.

You can lower your blood pressure by:

• losing weight
• eating less salt and salty foods
• eating more fruits, vegetables and low fat milk products
• reducing the amount of fat you eat
• physical activity
• reduce excessive alcohol consumption
• medication

To strengthen your heart, do aerobic activities such as brisk walking, cycling, swimming or dancing. Gradually increase your activity to thirty minutes or more on most, if not all, days.

If you're overweight, ask your health care team to guide you in a slow sensible weight loss plan.
This could include meeting with a registered dietitian.

Diabetes speeds up the process that narrows your blood vessels which makes it more likely you'll develop heart disease. Controlling your diabetes helps reduce your risk.

Stress reduction:

• deep breathing
• meditation
• talking with a good friend
• simply taking time to do things you enjoy

When you take action to reduce one risk factor it helps reduce another.